Worcester Chamber Music Society on a mission

Friday

Sep 21, 2012 at 6:00 AMSep 22, 2012 at 1:16 PM

By Richard Duckett TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

Beginning its seventh season with concerts Sept. 21 in Harvard and Sept. 22 in Worcester, the Worcester Chamber Music Society is turning up the volume on its goal of being a tuneful and meaningful presence in the Greater Worcester society at-large.

Tracy Kraus, executive director of WCMS, said, “Our mission is to reach out to the community as much as we can.”

The group has recently hired an education director, Ariana Falk, and named Krista Buckland Reisner, one its violinists, as business development director. A new initiative titled “Neighborhood Strings” will seek to work with children in the Main South area of Worcester and offer free string lessons.

WCMS is rolling out a free ticket program called WCMS Library Pass Program where free passes to ticketed concerts will be available at the Worcester Public Library to people with a library card. WCMS also has an on-oing presence in local schools

Meanwhile, a season of 15 concerts throughout Worcester County will include two free community concerts — one for children and families, and one for seniors.

“Community engagement in the arts is important to raising us up as a society in a meaningful way,” Kraus said. “As our organization gains capacity we're able to do more and more.”

Gaining capacity in this instance is chamber music notation for the nonprofit group doing increasingly well. When the society was founded in 2006, its initial season consisted of four concerts. “WCMS has established itself as an integral part of Worcester's cultural scene,” Kraus said. A recent grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council ($5,000 over two years) is another sign of ongoing progress.

Reisner said the society “is poised for a very interesting future … I wish to bring people and business closer together through the common bond of music to strengthen the cultural and social fabric of Worcester.”

The chamber group's core members consist of musicians who live locally but have international reputations: Peter Sulski (artistic director, violin/viola); Kraus (flute); Maria Ferrante (soprano); Reisner (violin); Amy Rawstron (violin); Rohan Gregory (violin); Mark Berger (resident composer/violinist); David Russell (cello); Joshua Gordon (cello); Ian Watson (harpsichord/piano); and William Ness (piano and organist). Most have been together since the ensemble was formed. Choosing “Worcester” in the title of the ensemble was a deliberate statement, Sulski noted at the group's formation.

The first concert of the 2012-13 season is titled “Beginnings and Endings” and includes Beethoven's first published composition, Piano Trio No. 1. The program also includes Haydn's Flute Quartet in G Major, and Schubert's last (finished) work, String Quintet in C major. The program will be performed at 7:30 tonight (pre-concert talk at 7 p.m.) in Unitarian Universalist Church, 9 Ayer Road, Harvard; and 7:30 p.m. Saturday (pre-concert also talk at 7 p.m.) in First Baptist Church, 111 Park Ave., Worcester. Tickets are $30; $25 seniors; children under 17, free admission.

The upcoming schedule has an “Impressions” concert, inspired by the great French Impressionist composers Debussy and Ravel, Nov. 16 at Congregational Church, Grafton, and First Baptist Church, Worcester; “The White House and Beyond” (juxtaposing music performed by Pablo Casals at his 1961 White House Concert with contemporary works) Jan. 13 at the Worcester Art Museum and Feb. 9 at Clark University; the annual family concert March 2 at the Cultural Center at Eagle Hill, Hardwick, and March 3 in Mechanics Hall; and April concerts in Grafton, Worcester and Harvard that will showcase Mozart's famous String Quartet in C major.

Other WCMS performances include its “Café Series” with three concerts at The People's Kitchen Restaurant, 1 Exchange Place, Worcester, and “Very Open Rehearsals,” which allow people to sit in on a rehearsal and discuss the music with the musicians.

The café series had been “very well attended,” Kraus said, while attendance at the family concert in Mechanics Hall this year nearly doubled the turn out of the previous year.

“We're also seeing more students at our concerts, which is great,” Kraus said. “We're really pleased. Our audiences really do feel like family.”